a blog supplementing the Images of America book from Arcadia Publishing

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Downtown 1958

Friday, November 4, 2016

Give It a Trial!

June 1898, Menasha Press

This patent medicine was represented locally by Charles Baldauf who passed away the next year in 1899. His widow, Emma Baldauf was sister to Valentine M. Landgraf, famous for the Landgraf Hotel which was located on the grounds of the current Brin theater building. Sadly, Baldauf's widow passed on the next year at age 32, leaving behind three young children.

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Menasha was carved from the northeastern Wisconsin wilderness in the late 1840s. At the confluence of the Fox River and Lake Winnebago, the town’s early entrepreneurs and industrialists sought the promise of waterpower to fuel their mills and kick-start the engine of commerce. Taming the Fox with dams, canals, and a lock, Menasha initially made its mark with flour mills and lumber-based industry. At one time, the city was home to the largest manufacturer of wood-turned products in the world. In the late 19th century, however, the tides of change once again washed upon the city and industrial focus shifted to the paper industry. What made Menasha great were dependable waterpower, plentiful rail connections to centers of commerce in Milwaukee and Chicago, and a prolific labor force that coincided with an influx of European immigrants.